


Scar Tissue

by RedRowan



Series: La Belle Dame Sans Merci [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Matt Murdock, Rule 63, girl! Matt Murdock, mostly sad feelings, sex and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 02:58:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7387804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank Castle always figured that Red would be like fire in bed.  He thought about it a lot.  But the reality was, she wasn't fire, she was only human, scarred just as badly as he was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar Tissue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Boomer1125](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomer1125/gifts).



Frank Castle always liked blondes. He’d seen a photo of Christie Brinkley in a magazine when he was six, and it had made an impression. When Teresa Bonnacini had shown up in ninth grade with her hair bleached, he’d decided that she’d be his first girlfriend. He still thought of the way that Maria’s hair had looked like spun gold under her wedding veil. Karen Page had seemed to have a halo every time he’d seen her.

And then there was Red.

She wasn’t blonde. Even before he’d known who she was, he’d never imagined her as blonde. A redhead, he’d have guessed, based on the temperament, but after he’d put it together, sitting opposite her in the courtroom, he’d considered that the dark hair made more sense. She was a creature of shadows and darkness, even dressed in red.

He hadn’t given her much thought, the first few times. She’d been an obstacle, a nuisance, then a symbol when he’d chained her to a chimney. He’d been convinced that if he could force her to see his side, she’d disappear from his life, leave him be. He was man enough to admit that she’d kicked his ass that night, fair and square, but he hadn’t thought much about the face under the mask. Red was Daredevil, it didn’t matter whoever she was in the daylight.

But then she’d come for him, taking out the Irish, and how many people could he say would do that? And she’d stayed, there in the graveyard, and listened to him, and she’d understood. And for the first time, he’d wished he’d taken off her mask.

He’d thought about her, in the hospital, then in the jail, during the trial. It started by thinking about fighting next to her, wishing he’d convinced her. Then he’d remember how she’d felt fighting him, how her body had moved, and his thinking would go in an entirely different direction. And after he knew who she was, after he’d pushed Karen away, after he’d watched her fight an army and still stand at the end, he thought about her even more.

She’d be like fire, he was sure, heat and power and a complete disregard for the rest of the world. She was flexible (he’d seen how flexible she was) and acrobatic, and he imagined the kind of sex you saw in porn, the kind his buddies used to claim they had, but he was 90% sure they were lying about. He imagined fighting turning into sex, he imagined battling her for dominance, he imagined throwing her on his bed and making her scream. She wouldn’t make it easy for him, and it would make it that much better when he won. And he always won, in his head, bringing the devil to her knees.

Which was why it was a little embarrassing to be sitting in front of her while she told him to take off his pants. While he normally didn’t wear pants in his fantasies, they usually didn’t involve him bleeding from his thigh thanks to a lucky hit from a crowbar. And when he imagined her on her knees in front of him, it generally didn’t include her wielding a needle and thread.

“If you’d just let me shoot him, this wouldn’t have happened,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, not going to happen,” she snapped as she pulled the thread through his flesh.

When the fight had been over (some scumbags who thought they could deal meth in the Kitchen), she’d torn up one of the assholes’ shirts to bandage his leg. She’d told him he’d lose a lot of blood if he didn’t let her stitch it up, and brought him back to her apartment. His coat and kevlar were on the floor by the stairs, most of his guns laid out on her coffee table, and her Daredevil suit was on the floor in her bedroom, he could see the edge of it through the door. She’d changed into a hoodie and sweatpants, and a pair of socks pulled up over the cuffs of her sweatpants, which he’d involuntarily thought was adorable.

“There,” she said, tying off the thread, “my Christmas present to you: a brand-new scar.”

He’d forgotten about Christmas.

“What day is it?” he said.

“The twenty-fourth. Probably the twenty-fifth by now, I don’t know what time it is.” She started putting away the stuff from the first-aid kit, peeling off the gloves she’d been wearing.

“Huh.” He tested the leg; it seemed like she’d done a decent job. “How’d you do all this shit, anyway?” He’d watched her while she’d worked on his leg, and she’d never once looked at what she was doing. “You really blind?”

“Yeah, I am,” she said wearily. She stood up. “You want a beer?”

“Nah, I don’t drink.”

“Mind if I have one?”

“Knock yourself out.” He glanced around her apartment while she went to the kitchen. Sparse, mostly lit from a shitty billboard across the street. She sat on the couch beside him, turned sideways to face him. “So?”

“So what?” she said, taking a drink.

“You gonna tell me?”

She sighed. “Short version? Chemical spill. Blinded me, and when I woke up, everything else was jacked up to eleven.”

“Huh. They turn you into Jackie Chan too?”

She smiled into her beer. “No, that came later. Long story.”

He could see the tip of a scar on her chest, just under her collarbone, peeking out from under her hoodie. He reached out and brushed the fabric aside, revealing a thin line, and then a round, red knob of scar tissue, like a gunshot wound.

“These a long story too?” he said.

“Ninjas,” she said, which was really all he needed. The ninjas were hard to forget.

“The ones who killed your girl?”

She nodded.

“This one,” she said, brushing her fingertip along the pale line, “was about a year ago. I’ve got more from him, he nearly killed me. And this one,” she touched the round one, “was a few weeks ago. An arrow, straight through.”

He ran his thumb over the scars, and left it there, gently brushing against her skin. He took her hand with his other hand, and put her fingertips to his hairline, pushing them into his hair about an inch. When he saw her breath catch, he knew she’d felt it.

“That’s where I was shot that day,” he said quietly. “That’s what you three were making such a big deal about.”

“That’s the shot that killed you,” she whispered.

He looked her straight in the face. “Yeah.”

Her hand slid down his face, her fingertips searching his features. They lingered on his nose.

“How many times has this been broken?” she said, her lips quirking in a way that made his mouth dry.

“Thirteen,” he said, moving his thumb on her chest just a little, feeling her skin, soft, even the scars. He slid his other hand down to her wrist, feeling her pulse through the thin skin there. Her fingertips drifted down, over his cheek and jaw, just close enough to his lips, but not touching them. “You were number twelve, for the record.”

The corner of her mouth turned up, and he couldn’t look anywhere else.

“I’d say I was sorry,” she said, “but I’d be lying.”

“Yeah, I know, Red.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, just touching her lips with his. She let it linger for a moment, before pulling away. She put her beer down on the coffee table.

“I haven’t…” she started, “…not since…”

“Not since her,” he finished, remembering the girl on the roof, all blades and black hair. And he remembered hair like spun gold, too. “Yeah. Me neither.”

“Haven’t wanted to,” she said. “Until now.”

He reached out and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. She turned back to him, and all he could see were her lips, her lips, her lips, and he leaned in again. She kissed back, this time, opening her mouth and welcoming his tongue with hers.

He leaned forward, meaning to bend her backwards on the couch, but his leg moved wrong, and the stitches pulled. He would have ignored it, but she knew somehow, her hand resting on his knee, stopping him from moving more. She pushed him so that he was sitting back on the couch, and she slid her leg over his, until she was straddling him. She tugged at the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up over his head, and ran her hands over his chest as she kissed him.

He broke the kiss, his hands in her hair, breathing hard. He slid one hand down to the zipper of her hoodie, and let it sit there, asking for permission. She kissed him again, short this time, before sitting back on his lap. The pressure made the cut on his leg ache, but he couldn’t feel the stitches pulling, and he was more interested in unzipping her hoodie, watching her let him see her. She wasn’t wearing anything under it. Pale skin was laid over hard muscle and laced with scar tissue, nothing soft or yielding about her except the look on her face. She looked afraid, almost trembling as the hoodie dropped to the ground. He lightly brushed his fingertips over her breast, watching the nipple stiffen at his touch.

“You’re beautiful, Red,” he whispered, holding the back of her head with his other hand. She leaned her head back, exposing her neck, and he pressed his lips over her pulse as he teased her breast. Her hands slid up his shoulders, cradling him against her. Her skin smelled like heaven, something delicate and sweet under the scent of battle-sweat, and he flicked his tongue out to taste it.

She pulled away, climbing off him, but she trailed her hands down his arms, pulling him with her. He winced when he stood up, his leg taking his weight, but he followed her into her bedroom easily enough. When she stopped next to the bed, he kissed her again, moving with her as she sat down on the edge of the bed and slid backwards. He groaned a little when he put his weight on his knees as he leaned over her, and she put a hand on his chest.

“Not with your leg,” she said. She took his shoulders in her hands and they rolled over so that he was on his back, leaning against her pillows, and she was on top of him, their mouths connected. Her hand wandered down his chest, until she was stroking him through his boxers, feeling his hardness. He slid his hands into her sweatpants, squeezing that perfect ass. She smiled against his lips, and pulled his boxers down and off, and her socks and sweatpants too. She was painted in light and shadow, lit by that crappy billboard across the street, and he reached out to touch her, feel her, hold her against him.

She leaned across him to her bedside table, and pulled out a condom. He put it on, then took her hand and slid it over the latex, letting her feel that it was safe, he was safe, they were safe. Then he took himself in hand and she climbed up on him and let him guide himself inside her. He sat up, holding her hips, and she kissed him as she started to move, slowly at first, then faster. She wasn’t fire. She was just human, warm flesh and beating heart, clinging to him and letting him lose himself in her. He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in, wrapping his arms around her. She was panting, then he heard tiny sounds coming from her throat, until she shook in his arms with a moan.

She took a moment to catch her breath, then started moving again, this time pumping harder on him, until he came inside her, whatever he was going to cry out lost against her skin.

She climbed off him and curled up on her side as he went to her bathroom to throw away the condom. When he came back, he slid into bed next to her, pressing against her back.

He thought of all the things he could do in this moment. He could brush her hair away from her ear, and whisper all the things he wanted to do to her. He could slide his hand up to her breast, tease her until she rolled over and mounted him again. Or he could put his hand between her legs, stroke her until she came again.

Or he could hold her until she fell asleep, and remind himself that whatever was between them was only real in the darkness.

He kept his hand where it was, and tucked his face against her hair, thinking of a phrase from Keats. “Full beautiful,” that was what she was. _La belle dame sans merci._

Her breathing slowed, and he was sure she was asleep. He inched out of the bed, away from her, and put on his clothes, limping a little now that his adrenaline was spent. He holstered his guns, and pulled his coat on over everything, the Punisher again, and looked back at her. She was still naked, and he couldn’t help but think how vulnerable she was, under her armor. A spine of steel, wrapped in fragile skin, her story written in scars. 

He tugged the covers up over her, keeping her warm. Then he crouched down, his hand on her hair.

“Merry Christmas, Red,” he murmured.

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently, I'm very suggestible. Boomer1125 asked for a Frank/Mattie story, and my initial reaction was, "Mmm, don't really have any ideas for that..." Which of course led down the rabbit hole of "Well, what kind of story would that be?" So thanks, Boomer!


End file.
